orange_hand Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Hi Guys, I recently bought two additional C64 PSU's for backup purposes :-). For my MB6582 I use the old PSU version, but now as I have got one of the newer versions I have got some questions. I have realized that the pins of the plug of the newer PSU version is differnt to the old version. Please find attached the overview: I wonder if the MB6582 SID V2 board takes this into consideration and would like to know if I can run the MB6582 with the new PSU version as well ... Cheers orange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Am not 100% sure, but pins 4 and 5 should be connected on the MB6582-side, so that +5V is accepted from any (or both) of these pins. Greets, Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orange_hand Posted August 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Thanks Peter, I think I will pull out my base board over the weekend and check the pins. I hope that both are supported. Is there a difference between these PSU's regarding the reliability and life time ? Cheers orange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 (edited) Both are unreliable :frantics:- reports of burnt C64s have scared me away from those "native" PSUs - if the 20+ year old voltage regulator in one of these PSU fails, it will pump excess juice through your valuable MB6582 :unsure: Edited August 5, 2011 by Hawkeye Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flemming Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Thanks Peter, I think I will pull out my base board over the weekend and check the pins. I hope that both are supported. Is there a difference between these PSU's regarding the reliability and life time ? Cheers orange May be easier to look in the wiki for the PCB files. i'm pretty sure there were some pdf documents where you could check out the traces Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuriken Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 (edited) Ì have to agree with Hawkeye on this one. If the PSU fails (which is not unlikely considering its age) the 5V rail will turn into something like 10V turning your expensive SIDs into silicon debris. Edited August 5, 2011 by Shuriken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orange_hand Posted August 5, 2011 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Hi, yes I know the PSU's are not reliable and the next thing I will do is to build a custom PSU, like Peter's :-) I wonder why nobody has started yet to produce some PCB's for that ... Cheers orange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuriken Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 (edited) Hi, yes I know the PSU's are not reliable and the next thing I will do is to build a custom PSU, like Peter's :-) I wonder why nobody has started yet to produce some PCB's for that ... Cheers orange Well there is lots of ideas but nobody has made a design that has the stamp of approval from the community i guess :tongue: Edited August 5, 2011 by Shuriken Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jojjelito Posted August 5, 2011 Report Share Posted August 5, 2011 Or rather that as soon as you need to build something you'll need to move on from a bench/lab PSU at one point or another. So, it's kind of a mandatory exercise. Get some thick copper-layer photoresist blank PCBs and etch away. Good for the soul... But then again: Switcher vs a toroid or worse, a cheapo, vanilla transformer (sometimes those are adequate). It's all down to costs and engineering - there's more than one way to skin a cat (please don't take that literally!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimfrost Posted August 6, 2011 Report Share Posted August 6, 2011 I use a third version of a c64 psu. The one to the right and you can change the fuses in them. I hope the fuses break if the voltage regulator would fail so no damage to the MB6582 would be done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye Posted August 6, 2011 Report Share Posted August 6, 2011 Rimfrost, I fear the fuse is at the mains side ("avoid fire in the house, bad for Commodore marketing"), thus leaving the MB6582 unprotected from voltage regulator failure, but am gladly proven wrong :-) Greets, Peter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuriken Posted August 7, 2011 Report Share Posted August 7, 2011 Rimfrost, I fear the fuse is at the mains side ("avoid fire in the house, bad for Commodore marketing"), thus leaving the MB6582 unprotected from voltage regulator failure, but am gladly proven wrong :-) Greets, Peter Very likely. To Commodore the SID was just a simple replaceable part. Not something that would cost 20 to 30 euro's. Besides Commodore cut cost on the mainboard as well by leaving out protection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjonas Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Here's two pics of and old PSU which I opened to see whether you could build a new one inside it. Verdict: not really. Here's the "transformer side". The regulator is mostly inside the glue or whatever, so in practice it cannot be replaced. The fuse is on the mains side. Here's the PCB. Check out the rectifier :-) I built myself a new one out based on a toroidal transformer I found at work, and retro-donald's design (http://www.retro-donald.de/pages/hardware/basteleien/powernetzteil.php). The toroid puts out almost 11VAC per coil (nominally 9VAC), so there's a lot to regulate after rectification (15VDC->5VDC); the total power consumption of a 4-core MBSID is about 18-19W, and the cooling element of the regulator gets very hot (you can't touch it longer than a few seconds after half an hour). I also had to put a small cooling element on the regulator inside the midibox which regulates 16VDC->9VDC, which doesn't get too hot though. (Will send more pics when I get home!) The regulator I used can take 2A, and according to my measurements a 4-core MBSID with completele control surface doesn't exceed 1,5A (on the 5VDC side); I guess I'm going to consider a bigger cooling element just to make it sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orange_hand Posted October 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I am currently designing a PSU PCB based on an improved version of Retro Donalds design. I hope you are aware that Retro Donalds design should be improved in some respects. I have already ordered some more parts and will soon start building the PSU. If you are interested I will publish my work... Greetz orange Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonk Posted October 3, 2011 Report Share Posted October 3, 2011 Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I am currently designing a PSU PCB based on an improved version of Retro Donalds design. I hope you are aware that Retro Donalds design should be improved in some respects. I have already ordered some more parts and will soon start building the PSU. If you are interested I will publish my work... Greetz orange that's great dude, i'd totally be interested! good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjonas Posted October 4, 2011 Report Share Posted October 4, 2011 (edited) Personally I wasn't aware that Retro-Donald's design should be improved, so I too am interested in orange_hand's suggestions; myself I can't really design anything too complicated, even though I can read schematics ok and implement other people's projects. Retro-Donald's design seems better than the C64 original though. Here's what I built. From the outside: ..and inside. The toroid is under the rubbish PCB. Edited October 4, 2011 by jjonas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.